Things are pretty fucked up and the future is uncertain — probably the worst in my lifetime (perhaps excepting 1969 before I can remember). When it’s like that, I like to think about my grandparents and what they faced and got through with the Great Depression and WWII.
/1
/2 There were absolutely no guarantees that everything would be all right. Terrible things were happening and more terrible things were a distinct possibility. But they got through it, relying on the fundamental things they cared about.
/3 I think about Grandma taking a taxi to the hospital to have my mom, forbidding my grandpa’s parents from calling him to let him know — he was on base studying for the supply officer test the next day, and doing well would determine where he was assigned, and maybe whether he’d live or die.
/4 (Grandpa’s parents had a car, but grandma had a flair for drama, I think.)
He did well and went off to be the supply officer on a ship in the Pacific. Went with absolutely no guarantee of coming back. That’s what people did.
/5 So, in terrible circumstances, think what people before you have endured. Think about how you can support and defend folks less able than you to endure. And fight the bastards.
/6 My grandparents didn’t whine about it. Nor, for that matter, did my college classmate who survived as a child in 1970s Cambodia by hiding in a pile of his neighbor’s bodies. So, keep calm and fight.
Don’t you feel a corner was turned when a president is given absolute immunity? Also, for those of us who had whole generations of the family tree wiped out in a 10 year period, if you see the writing on the wall you get the hell out before it’s too late
Getting the hell out before it's too late is not at all incompatible with staying calm and fighting.
You assess the risks, and do what you need to in order to survive - make that choice calmly and as rationally as you can. And then whether from inside or outside, you fight.
Literally the only reason I am alive is my grandparents got the hell out of Poland before it was too late. The family members who stayed all died in the camps.
There is no shame in leaving.
It’s tricky for two reasons
1) the resurgence of the far right is happening in so many places
2) the US military can reach any corner of the world, barring other far right rivals checking the DoD with nukes
I always felt that a president had such powers, thanks to the power of the pardon. This ruling is merely confirming that for Trump specifically.
The thought of this particular president returning to power would be the turn of the corner for me. It'd mean that half of fellow citizens endorse fascism.
It wouldn’t, though: especially for a GOP candidate, electoral college victories are as divorced as possible from popular vote victories, and popular vote counts are as divorced as possible from genuine popular support (via suppression enabled by Shelby v. Holder and similar maneuvering).
My favourite perspective in these matters is to remember that we are all of us descended from survivors of the worst that humanity has dealt with: plagues, famines, wars, the lot.
Ken, as someone who lives with chronic major depression, I've spent the last few days thinking "welcome to my world" - something that happened during the dark days of COVID, too.
Wondering if this is something you've experienced. It's pretty strange giving people advice on dealing with despair.
It’s not similar to me. Depression and anxiety feel completely different. Despair because of horrible things actually happening feel one way; depression and anxiety feel like being broken in the way I experience/perceive things.
I’m not at all disagreeing with you at all, but a “fun” fact is that being wrong is not part of the diagnostic criteria for depression—if you’re depressed because the world around you is awful, that’s still a psychological disorder.
Whilst I like this optimistic take; the level of existential threat from Climate Change and impending collapse of biodiversity, just somehow feels even more doom laden than yet another war.
If we get Trump in power; it won’t be one period of strife; it will be generations suffering this collapse.
100% agree that Dump in power sets in motion a chain of events that Fs not only American democracy but likely the entire future of our planet. Irreversible, accelerating climate change and all that implies for sea levels, biodiversity, climate, crops, conflict.
Let's stay real about the stakes...
to maximize turnout. Numbers are on our side.
There's a potential positive spin here, not just the negative doom & gloom -- vote dem to preserve and restore our democracy and our planet.
Imho both the negative and positive messages are intellectually honest and valid and should be amplified.
Why worry about that when one day someone could get stressed and just end human life in a couple of hours? Our last great period of strife ended with the detonation of 2 very tiny nuclear bombs. Imagine if it had begun with everyone having thousands of big ones.
One day someone could see a post in Xitter that they didn't like, and decide that nuking a foreign country was the only way to make themselves like a Big Man again, justification be damned.
yep. whether or not the US becomes a christofascist hellhole or not is missing the point, which is that the planet is going to become uninhabitable in my lifetime. There’s no “getting through it”
You're right. And I lived long enough in relative freedom, which is way more than most people who ever lived could say. But I hate it for the kids. I hate it for the kids.
What I keep thinking, I'm glad I choose to not have kids. And lived in a time and place, thanks to my ancestors, where I had that choice. Many for a while to come, if not for a long time to come, will not.
Well said!
My father was a WWII flight instructor. The Dr to pass him for bomber flights asked, "Why do you wear glasses?" He said, "Because I can't see w/o them." Dr. - "You're not going". My mother was glad. My father felt guilty. Some of his students didn't return!
All we have to do is vote!
When I reflect on the sacrifices and eloquence of Rep. John Lewis (et al), it gives me a little more courage to stay in the fight. It is imperative that we do, to ensure - regardless of any benefits we may not survive to see - the survival of our democracy.
Fighting is all we have left.
That being said, we are going into circumstances that historically lead to nation scale blood letting and possibly decades before anything can be remotely repaired. We have to be clear about the enormity of what this may well be.
I remain a sort of pacifist. There may come a point where political violence is justified, but the goal, and arguably the moral obligation is to avoid violence. I'm starting to worry about polical assassinations though. An assassination could easily trigger widespread violent protests.
